Expo site raises local fears, hopes in Greenpoint

Neighbors fret over 'shady' owners, but shops see opportunity.

Less than six months before New York's newest exhibition space opens in Greenpoint, locals still have little idea about the types or scale of events the Brooklyn Expo Center will draw, much less their hours or frequency.

In the absence of hard information, suspicions, as well as hopes, have run riot. Some residents express concern about the real estate moguls behind the project, a father-son duo who bought the building in 2001 as part of a 16-acre industrial complex and who some say have a shady past. Others fret over the center's impact on traffic and parking. Meanwhile, some restaurateurs and shop owners anticipate scoring business from convention-goers.

"Anything that brings people to the neighborhood in general is a good thing," said Emily Pullen, the manager for the past seven years at Word, an 800-square-foot Franklin Avenue bookseller a block from the center. She said her "gut instincts" tell her the project will help. "We would love for people to trickle in on their lunch break."

She also hopes the center becomes a site for Word's special events, although she wondered if its prices will fall within her budget.

"Our basement is pretty small and can handle 100 people comfortably, so when we have authors that draw more, we look for other venues," said Ms. Pullen, whose store has held events in places like the Polonaise Terrace, a catering hall nearby on Greenpoint Avenue.

Jack Guttman, 34, the junior member of the duo that owns the property, insisted that "nothing was a secret" about his plans. In terms of scale, Mr. Guttman, who is developing the site through his company, Pearl Realty, advises neighbors to think modest—very modest.

Slated to open in the fall, the one-story former industrial brick building, grandly reborn behind a new glass façade as the Brooklyn Expo Center, is being pitched by Mr. Guttman as a site for minor and local events, including product launches and trade shows that attract no more than 2,500 visitors. In short, the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, with 840,000 square feet of exhibition space, has nothing to fear from Mr. Guttman's 28,000 square feet near the Brooklyn waterfront.

"We may not have the auto show but one of the car companies for a product launch," he said. While he waits for signed contracts from six show organizers, Mr. Guttman has already lined up the My Big Fat Jewish Wedding expo, which will run on Nov. 9, and pop-culture periodical Bust Magazine's Craftacular on Dec. 6 and 7.

In the meantime, a two-phase, $2 million gut renovation is underway. The first phase, which began in February and is slated for a fall completion, encompasses the exhibition hall and a 150- to 200-car parking lot in the adjacent property, which will include space for food trucks. The second phase, to finish next spring, includes 12,000 square feet of meeting, storage and office space.

By charging a daily rental rate of $15,000, the developer projects gross revenues of $1.5 million in the first year and double that in the second.

Mr. Guttman and his father, Joshua, 66, own and manage about 5 million square feet of property, from New York to Israel. Their 96-year-old expo building stands at the edge of the decayed Greenpoint Terminal Market, which covers six blocks along the East River.

Through the years, squatters, punk bands and skaters moved in. In 2001, the senior Mr. Guttman purchased the complex for $25 million from an estate.

Five years later, a 10-alarm fire razed more than a dozen buildings. Although a homeless man was implicated in starting it, some still hold the Guttmans in suspicion for that and other blazes at their properties. Jack Guttman denies the rumors. "We never set the fire," he said.

Nevertheless, some locals fume with distrust for Joshua Guttman. "Everyone in this community knows that the fire wasn't an accident and that Guttman is bad news for this community," wrote Laura Hofmann from Greenpoint, in response to an article in The Brooklyn Paper about the expo center.

For her part, Karen Nieves, a lifelong Greenpoint resident and the transportation chair of Brooklyn's Community Board 1, faults the Guttmans for a lack of openness.

"There's been no communication with the community," said Ms. Nieves, who notes the landlords never presented her board with a transportation plan, although she conceded they are not required to.

To be "mindful of the neighbors," Jack Guttman said he not only included a parking lot, but shifted the front of the center off the main drag of Franklin Street to less-trafficked Noble Street.

Others dismiss concerns about traffic and parking as part of life in Gotham. "It goes with the territory that parking is always difficult," said Robert Arbor, owner of the five-year-old Le Gamin, a cozy eatery. More important, he predicted, the center "will bring people to the neighborhood and the restaurant."